Creating a Social Identity

Abstract

By the early years of the twentieth century, the struggle to emancipate the body from nature had largely been won. The contours of the body defined an autonomous object located within, yet separated from, a natural landscape. This positioning implied that danger was located along the interface between body and nature, a threat constantly reaffirmed by a sanitary science that guarded and maintained the body/nature divide. In the early twentieth century, however, the boundary of the body was realigned, and a new space of danger was revealed to the watchful eye of medicine.